


stamp collecting

by basementmixtape



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Bisexual Boris Pavlikovsky, Boris and Pippa are Best Friends, Character study(?), F/F, F/M, Lesbian Pippa Blackwell, M/M, Mostly friendship, Pen Pals, its about these two idiots accidentally being paired as pen pals, letter writing, they have no idea who they’re writing to, wlw mlm solidarity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23340658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basementmixtape/pseuds/basementmixtape
Summary: Dear Stranger,Pen pal project is stupid, they don't even let you give true names. He said to treat it like a diary so that's what I will do. You can call me Pav. I live in Vegas, I have for a while.-Boris and Pippa are paired together for a school project, they have no idea who they’re writing to.
Relationships: Boris Pavlikovsky & Pippa Blackwell, Boris Pavlikovsky/Kotku (The Goldfinch), Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 25
Kudos: 99





	1. boris. entry one.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic will deal with heavy subject matter. proceed with caution. 
> 
> very rough, stream of consciousness. unedited, because boris is the one writing the letter lmao

Dear Stranger,

Pen pal project is stupid, they don't even let you give true names. He said to treat it like a diary so that's what I will do. You can call me Pav. I live in Vegas, I have for a while.

The problem is I've never been good at this, at staying in one place this long, at putting things into words, at clinging to something like this. Something that actually matters. I'm not used to dealing with shit that matters. I'm used to dealing with shit that doesn't. I lie to him all the time. I tell him all of it doesn't matter. I tell him he's alright, he's normal and happy when the sun goes down and he gets another mouthful of stolen supermarket vodka, another noseful of Vicodin, another high I can watch him float away on. All of it is so fucking stupid. I'm so fucking stupid.

I've always been stupid. I figured I should try writing it down. That's what Kotku said to do. Fucking kotku. KOTKU. My girlfriend. She's hot but what else is there to her? What else is there to anyone? Potter. He hates her. I hate her sometimes. I gave her a fat lip. I think I'm like my father and I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about what that means. Some women deserve to be hit. That's what he always told me and i never said it until I hit her, and isn't it funny how that works? How a defence only springs up when you need it? It's not an opinion it's a fucking defence and a weak one. I feel like sometimes I'm made for other people to hurt. Made for other people to rip into and consume. That's all Potter does to me. He rips in and takes what he wants then stitches me up like I'm not anymore fucking hollow than I was when he started. We fuck sometimes. I don't think he remembers but there are these spaces where it seems like he does. He'll look at me and there's recognition. I don't know what that means. Potter. He's my best friend. He's a boy. He likes boys. He doesn't like to think about it.

I don't know if I like boys. I like boys. I like Kotku. Girls are hot. Boys aren't hot but sometimes I look at a boy and I see how beautiful he is and I want to cry. I don't cry. I'm bad at crying. I think it's a side effect of all of this, like I'm stuffing myself with so much garbage my brain is learning how to malfunction all on its own, no high required.

They say in the classes to ask the other person a question. Do you like boys, Stranger? Do you like anyone at all?

-Pav


	2. pippa. entry two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the letter arrives on pink paper in an envelope that smells like perfume. the stamp says state of texas and there is a return address in a tiny, cramped scrawl that reminds him of one a girl might have, a girl who works in science or something.

Dear Pav,

To answer your question, no, I don't like boys, I never have, which concerns most people because I'm a girl. You sound like an asshole, but one of those tragic ones with the complicated backstories to excuse all the bullshit they spout in some story, and honestly we might very well be a matched set. I’m an asshole most of the time, especially to people I know.

People I don’t know seem to have this preconceived idea of who I am, like they look at me and all they see are the surgical scars and the limps and drags and all the bullshit that doesn’t make up any part of who I am. So I’m nice, because even though it’s a fairytale idea of who I am it’s hard not to try to live up to it. Small broken bird. Broken wings in a broken nest full of broken eggs. People can’t help but try to fix me. I get headaches a lot so it’s hard to write this down, but you can call me Adagio. I like it far better than what you would call my true name.

You shouldn’t be with this Kotku girl if you hate her so much, she might be hot, but it sounds like the one you really like is your best friend, your “Potter”. Is he really so afraid of himself he can’t come to terms with his sexuality? How old are you both? This is probably just as alarming and strange to him as it is to you, and though you don’t seem like a very empathetic person, I encourage you to try to see it from his perspective, to find out why he pretends to forget you whenever you touch.

I live in Texas, but my real home is New York. I haven’t been there in a long time, but I remember the sweeping streets and the buildings that touched the sky, and I miss the closed in walls of it all, it’s too vast here, and it reeks like cow shit where I live. Do you live near a city? Or is it in the middle of nowhereland like me? I’m curious about you, Pav, you seem like an intriguing guy. Did you assume I would be a boy when you sent your letter? It’s lucky you found another queer person by chance. You are a queer. That’s what it means when you aren’t straight, and based on all you’ve told me, you most definitely aren’t straight.

Since you included some general questions for me, I figure I’ll take my turn. What kind of music do you listen to? What makes your heart dance?

Sincerely,

Adagio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please share your thoughts and ideas :)


	3. boris. entry three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she recognizes his blackink scrawl on the dirty envelope instantly, excitedly tearing it open, accidentally ripping the envelope in two. the paper falls to the floor, the smell of cigarettes clinging to it. she sits cross legged right there on the ground and reads it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: homophobia (from theo) use of the f slur

Dear Adagio,

I'm 16. Potter just turned 15. Kotku is 18. I don't know what this has to do with anything. He was very bad today, he's always upset and angry but today it was worse. He called me ~~a faggot~~ something nasty when I tried to touch him and then he started to cry and I had to coax him to his bed without touching him, like riding a bike with no hands but the bike also has no wheels. His mother died. He loved her. He still loves her.

How do you help someone deal with the death of a person they assumed was immortal? These are the questions I will ask of you, but I don't expect you to answer them. I listen to lots of music, mostly what Potter likes. We listened to that old song, that old album, the one by the Velvet Underground and Nico, with the song about mirrors. That song makes my heart sing. What a strange question. What kind of girl are you, Adagio? I don't know what kind of boy I am. I don't know how to describe myself in terms you would understand. A lot of people don't understand me here, it is probably my accent.

I have very strong accent, my first language was Ukrainian, then Polish, then Russian, then I learned English properly when we moved to Alaska. You say New York is your home. I don't think I have any city I could call home without it being an obvious lie. I have never had a home. Not a real one, at least. I think this is home. I think anywhere is home as long as he is here with me. I know you told me to have empathy but it's hard to imagine the mind of someone who is so viciously hateful toward themselves. This is hard. Everything is hard with him. He's so difficult to understand. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world, like I am stranded on the moon. I like to look at the sky at night and imagine it's some kind of ocean I can wade into and swim in sometime. I imagine it's cold up there. Or down there. In my imagination. It's quiet. Sometimes I think I'm unknowable. Sometimes I want someone to know me. Really know me.

I want to drop acid. I've taken E before with Potter. It's easy enough to find here if you know where to look and we know where to look when we want something, I do at least. I've been thinking a lot about it lately. I want to listen to The Velvet Underground and fuck someone while I'm tripping. It doesn't matter who I do it with. We live close enough to the city, but far enough there is nothing to do. We walk everywhere. I am too pale for the desert so we walk under an umbrella, Potter calls me a vampire sometimes. He thinks he's funny, and please don't tell him but sometimes he actually is. We live in a suburb they built too far away so the desert is reclaiming. Not nowhereland. But without a car it might as well be. I assumed you would be a boy. I always assume that because I am a boy and boys can be selfish creatures.

Why do you have so many surgical scars? Why are people so scared to be mean to you? Why do you have a limp? I don't care if it's personal. You have seen into my soul.

-Pav


	4. pippa. entry four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he grabs the letter from the mailbox and stuffs it in his bag before his father sees it, takes it to potter’s place and tears it open on his couch, he gets a stupid stare for it but it’s impossible for him to wait to see what she’s written him. her cramped handwriting takes up the whole page. she’s mailed him a dried flower with the letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your lovely and kind comments on this fic! im so glad you’re enjoying reading it as much as im enjoying writing it :)

Dear Pav,

Sometimes I do that too, stare at the sky like it’s a place I’ll actually be able to go. My first night here was so strange, in New York the city is too bright to ever see any stars, but out here the sky opens up and you can look up and it’s like salt on a black tabletop but completely and totally endless. I swear I laid in the grass for hours my first night here, just staring at the stars and the little sliver of a moon and feeling like the inside of one of those pictures of space. I have to take pain meds, for my head and my leg, so I felt like I was floating in some vast ocean even though I was on dry land. Sometimes I feel alone too, Pav. I think everyone feels alone, it’s a symptom of being human.

I lost someone too, someone who was old and grey and I should have known he wasn’t immortal but it’s hard to see that when you’re standing next to someone all the time, you start to ignore the lines around their eyes and the slipperiness when they stand and their bad back and their knees that creak like old houses. It’s not a strange thing, to love someone and lose someone you thought would be around forever. Immortality seems like it’s close, even though it’s always out of reach. Sometimes I think that what draws me to music, to the classical things. I’ve always been obsessed with antiquity but not in furniture or art but in sound, sound makes my memory come alive in a way nothing else can, I always wanted to make music because making music would make me immortal, making anything would make me immortal. That’s all artists are, human beings desperately trying to turn themselves into gods, undying and unfading. I never believed in a real god, but I believe in Mozart and Beethoven and Bach and Tchaikovsky. The greats are my gods and I will never be among them.

I was in an accident. I don’t like talking about it, but I can’t play anymore, my hands shake too much, I can barely get through the basics now. The doctors told me I would never fully recover. I got a very bad brain injury and they almost had to cut off my leg, they didn’t do it, but it never feels right now. I keep waking up and expecting my body to go back to normal, but it’s always still just broken and strange. It doesn’t even feel like my body anymore, it feels like I got transported in here after what happened. That’s how my person died. I think I’ll call him Andante for you, he was my favourite person in the world, he was so supportive and kind and loving, and now I’ll never see him again. He used to take me for hot chocolate in a bunch of different cafés in the city, ever since I was little he would take me and tell me we were hunting, that we would find the best ones and that would be the one we went to every day. Sometimes I’m glad I had to leave New York. I feel like he would have haunted me there, every little thing would remind me of him, all the corners he used to stop to show me the flowers on, the murals we would stare at, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, he used a cane when he walked because he had all these health issues but in my mind he was an immortal being. Who could live as long as he did? Someone who would never die.

It hurts to be wrong, in this case more than any other. What are you wrong about? What have you been wrong about and learned from? How are things with Potter? How long have you known each other? Why do you do so many drugs?

Why does no one know you? I could be wrong, but I feel like I know a lot about you so far. I could know more, but you’ve only sent me two letters and I have a pretty clear idea of who you are. I like to imagine what you look like, is that strange? I have no idea. You said you were Ukrainian and all the Ukrainian people I’ve met have been very blonde and blue eyed, but you said you were a vampire, so in my head you are blond and pale. I don’t know, what do you think I look like based off of what I’ve told you? I need to imagine PEOPLE in your stories and it’s hard to do that when there isn’t a face to the name.

Pav, do you know why we’re both so lonely? I want to hear your answer, talking to you like this makes me feel a little less alone.

Sincerely,

Adagio


	5. boris. entry five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Included with the letter is a Polaroid picture of a painfully thin boy with paper white skin and wild black curls, a dark bruise bitten into his pale neck, another bruise wrapped around his cheekbone, laughing black eyes peering at her from the picture, one corner of his thin mouth curled into a knife sharp smile. Pippa traced a fingertip over the girl curled next to him, equally skinny if not more so, black smeared makeup on and bright orange streaks of colour in her black hair. They both looked scary, like the kind of people she would usually avoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING this chapter is super dark 
> 
> i don’t know if i actually like it but it’s what u are getting. boris and theo are both sad in my opinion, it’s why they connect to each other so well. boris is sad today.

Dear Adagio, 

I am not a blond. I included a picture Kotku took of us with this letter, to help you imagine. It’s strange to imagine what you look like. I think you have brown hair and green eyes, and freckles. Is your hair long or short? It must be short if you had surgery on your brain. This is an odd thing to think about. Before you mentioned it I didn’t care to wonder but now it’s like I must know or I will die. I don’t have any pictures with Potter, he doesn’t like photos of himself, he gets angry. Everything makes him angry. Sometimes I wonder if he’s angry because he’s sad or if he has always been this way. I’m writing this at home. The house smells like piss and beer. My father hasn’t been home for five days. I hope he never comes back.

Sometimes I hate my father. He has always been cruel to me and pretended it was love. He hits me. He used to hit my mother. She killed herself. Got drunk and fell out of a window. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if she didn’t die, sometimes I wonder if she loved me. Mothers are meant to love you without condition but she used to hit me for everything then apologize and weep. My father never apologizes when he hits me anymore. He says he’s sorry but he doesn’t mean it, it’s always excused. He says he’s teaching me respect but I think he’s just angry. Sometimes I think I’m drawn to anger. It’s familiar. Everyone I love hates some part of me.

Sometimes I think I don’t know what love is. I think I never learned and now it’s too late to figure it out. Potter. He’s the closest thing I think I’ve ever had to love. He hits me too. Not the way my father does. Not the way my mother did. But he hits me when he’s angry. Once he slammed my head against the wall until I apologized, I don’t remember what I was apologizing for. I only remember him hurting me then telling him I was sorry and letting him touch me however he wanted too. All he ever does to me is takes. He’s given me the closest I’ve ever had to love by taking and taking and taking. I feel so fucking empty. I always feel so fucking empty. Sometimes I know how to fix it and I talk about it to him and he laughs at me and I know he doesn’t think I’ll do it but I could do it I could fix it and never have to feel so empty and I don’t know the word I’m looking for all I can think of is empty and hollow. That’s all I can feel.

I think I’m just sad today. I took something now I’m sitting in my bed and writing this down. I hate that I’m like him. Sometimes I think everyone is doomed to become their father. I have a lot of sometimes. I repeat myself a lot. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.

I’m wrong a lot about all kinds of things, I never learn from any of it. Potter is doing badly. It’s like he always gets worse. Last night we got drunk and high off of something I don’t know what it was but it made everything go all weird and watery but not watery I felt like I was in an ocean but not in an ocean and then I was on the ground and Potter was laying in the middle of the road and quiet and trying to make me leave him there in the street to die. Terrifying how calm he was. Determined. I had to pick him up and drag him back into the house. He shoved me into a wall and when he kissed me we knocked over a beer and it was foaming all over the carpet. He was crying then. He always makes messes he doesn’t know how to clean up. He’s doing very badly lately. He misses his mother. He misses New York. He gets angry when I’m with Kotku. He gets angry when I try to touch him. He is always angry. Or he is sad. Sometimes he is neither and that’s when he tries to kill himself. It’s getting so bad lately. It’s always been bad but this feels worse.

I’m sorry I’m dumping all of this onto you. I feel selfish. You asked me why I do so many drugs. This is why. It’s a bad excuse but it’s the only one I have. I’ve only known him for about a year. You asked me about that. I don’t know why you asked me about that.

People don’t know me because they don’t care to know me. I also don’t care to let them know me. But you’re right, talking like this makes me feel less alone. I wish you didn’t have to stop playing. I’ve never had a talent like that. All I’m good at is finding trouble. You had a gift and it was stolen from you. That is one of the most tragic things that can happen to a person. I think we are both lonely because we are on the outside. I am not like anyone I have ever met with all of my travelling and languages and my father. You were in an accident that made you a separated part of the world in a split second. Your new body you were transported to came with new rules. It seems to be an enforced loneliness. We are both destined to be alone forever. I don’t think anyone will ever love me. I don’t think I would know what to do with love if someone gave it to me.

I’m just sad today.

I’m sorry for being sad today.

-Pav


	6. pippa. entry six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> boris stares at the letter in his hands like it’s venomous, it’s contents could be poison. when he rips through the pink envelope a polaroid of a girl with brilliant red hair and huge brown eyes falls onto the dirty carpet. half her head is shaved, she has visible surgical scars, and she stands with a cane. she is very beautiful. the letter smells like lavender and tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: eating disorder, referenced self harm, poor body image, character romanticizing an eating disorder/ disordered eating

Pav,

Have you ever listened to _Danse Macabre?_ It's about a dance with the devil and it makes me think of you. I think if I saw you and I didn't know you in your heart, I would assume you're some kind of devil. I find that I've always been an instinctively judgemental person, and it's sick in a way that I'm impressed at the depth you have, far more than I would have been without seeing that picture of you. You're not what I expected Pav, none of what you have told me has been what I expected. You're good looking enough, I see now why you have two people pining after you. Before I saw you I imagined you as Hamlet in my mind, tragedy in his story, dark in garb instead of colouring, but now that I've seen you i feel that it's changed something integral in what I am. In what I think about other people.

My family has always been rather wealthy, the place I’m staying at in Texas is a huge farm my aunt owns, before this I lived very comfortably in New York, my _Andante_ sold antique furniture to the wealthiest New Yorkers you can imagine. I went to a prestigious academy for my musical abilities, and a private school. Uniforms and everything. My hair is red, decidedly not brown, my eyes however, are in fact brown. I've included a Polaroid with this letter. I know I'm nothing special, and your life is much more interesting and troubled than mine, but please don't say anything nasty about me in the return letter. I trust you, Pav. I feel we could send letters like this back and forth forever. You fascinate me endlessly, every new thing I learn about you ignites even more curiosity in my heart. You're like an enigma, but I can get all the answers I could ever ask for.

I want to be a good friend to you, Pav. I feel we could be friends our whole lives long, as long as we keep the effort of writing these letters alive. Lately I've felt wrapped in this inescapable fog, like my head is stuffed with cotton and my ears are blocked. It's not a physical sensation, it's like a deep sadness housed somewhere under my skin. It's internal, a feeling. I call it a feeling, but it's more like a lack of feeling.

Have you ever felt like you're trapped in your own skin? I wish I could trade this life for someone else's, someone fascinating and strong. Someone who doesn't need to walk with a cane at fifteen. I always feel so ugly. I know it's not important, how you look. I know objectively I'm not a monster, but sometimes I feel so undesirable it's like I could carve myself out of my own skin, like I would be prettier as a raw chunk of flesh than I am in this horrible, suffocating body I'm trapped inside of. This may seem ridiculous to you, I know it's ridiculous, that's why you're the only person I would ever be willing to share this with. Sometimes I'm so sad I can't bring myself to eat, and those days are the most dangerous days, because the emptiness inside of me is thrilling. It's like I can finally breathe. I want to climb on the roof and scream, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm a human being!" I finally feel like a person, like I have something I can control about this horrible body. I feel the most alive when I'm killing myself.

There's something so romantic about starving. It's like music, every breath you take must be calculated, the balance between life and death is like a song. You hear the symphony come alive underneath the tightrope you're balanced on, and sometimes you think it would be easier to just let yourself fall. Bruise up the violin section. Break a set of drums. Break your spine. Whatever. It's all relative. We all live here. You're alive in my mind, a person with thoughts and worries and love and a life worth living. I often wonder if I'm a person to you, or just a character in your mind. People I don't know often feel like one dimensional characters, static and still when the leave my thoughts, like cardboard cutouts. They're flimsy. You are solid as concrete. You're the only person who I can truly express myself to.

I’m sorry for putting this weight on your shoulders.

I’m sorry we have to live here.

-Adagio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally worked up the courage to post an update! I hope you enjoyed (even tho 98% of it is just me projecting my ed onto pippa lmao). Thank you for reading!


	7. boris. entry seven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She rips open the white envelope with his address on it as soon as she sees it on the counter, leaning against her cane and reading it in the kitchen. The paper is stained from coffee, it smells like cigarettes. When she reads the first paragraph, her blood runs cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mentions of suicide and self harm, implied thoughts of suicide/self harm

_Adiago_ ,

I listened to _danse macabre_ , it sounds like it’s frightened of something. Have you heard the song _I exist I exist I exist_ by flatsound? Potter listens to this sometimes. It makes me think of you, and your Pippi Longstocking hair, like the girl in the stories Potter tells me. His Pippa from New York with hair like a fire and kisses that are sticky with morphine. He pretends to love her I think. He speaks of her more lately. He imagines a version of the poor girl that could never exist. Have you ever read _the Great Gatsby_? I had to for stupid fucking english class, terrible book about terrible people. But some parts are good. It feels like a garden, like it’s made of flowers. Potter is like Gatsby is to Daisy with his Pippa, imagines a woman into the world who does not exist. He is fated to always break his own heart, he expects too much and too little from the world. It hurts him inside. Everything hurts him inside.

Yesterday he got so drunk he told me he loves me. He cried for it, and this morning he’s forgotten again, it is like night and day he is a different person. He does not remember what he told me, he does not remember how I touched him and how he touched me. In the sunlight he becomes like paper and match, like sunlight is the paper and my touch will set his blood on fire. It is like we are committing a crime. When my tongue is in his mouth it’s like the hand of a thief. Like I am stealing something from him. Like we are doing something evil and rotten. Like the tenderness between us is a poison he needs to spit off of his tongue. He can be so gentle and tender, sometimes he touches me like I am made of glass, like I am something precious he does not want to break. But then the sun comes, and suddenly he is careless and crass and so scared of me. I feel like I am going insane, Adiago. I feel like I am chasing a mirage in the desert by loving this boy.

I feel like his version of love is killing me. I know what you mean about wanting to cut yourself out of your own body. I have to stop Potter from trying every time a bottle touches his lips. He is worse than he has ever been, I thought he was bad before but that was like summer compared to the winter he is in now. He is lost. We are both lost, I have been lost as long as I have been alive, I have lived everywhere, I have found a home nowhere but inside of this boy who barely has enough room to carry himself. I will never fit, and I am done trying to cut myself a place inside him. He has suffered enough loving me already. When he told me he loves me I felt like the sky was falling on top of me. His love is violent, he is angry he loves me. I would be angry to love me. I am a hard person to love, no one but him has managed to do it. I know i am unloveable, but a reminder of this still hurts as much as my first realization of it did. I will make room inside of myself so I will never be without a home. I am destined to live this life alone, i might as well start getting used to it.

I wish I didn’t have to love him.

Everything would be easier if I didn’t love him. He loves me, I know he loves me. It is like we were set adrift, abandoned to the wilds and the ocean, and when he realized it was only the two of us in the storm he loved me because if he loved me he wouldn’t have to be alone. I want to live at the bottom of his pool, it’s cold and the chlorine would burn inside of my lungs. I don’t want to breathe anymore, I want release, I want peace and stillness and to sink to the bottom and stare at the wavering sky above me with burning eyes until my vision goes and I can finally be alone. I was always meant to be alone. I don’t know why he’s here when all I’m going to do is hurt him. All I ever do to anyone is hurt them. He wasn’t meant to love me, Adiago. No one was ever meant to love me. I was meant to live alone and die alone. I was supposed to live as though I had never even been born.

I want to crawl inside of myself. I want to hide from him. I want him to stop loving me.

I am sorry for dumping all of this on you, but Potter is consuming my mind. He is driving me mad. He is infuriating and confusing and cruel and I have never loved anyone the way I love him. He is like heroin. Loving him feels like shooting up. I know he is going to kill me, but I can’t stop myself. My heart cries for him when I am far from him, it weeps when I am near him. I will never be able to resist temptation. I will always give in when I want him and he wants me. He makes it all fade away. He’s better than any drug I’ve ever tried. I will crave him until I die.

I wish I knew how to stop loving him. I wish I knew how to make him stop loving me.

I’m sorry you have to read my relationship nonsense. I’m sorry I wrote this down. I’m more sorry I’m sending it to you.

When you take too long to write, I miss talking to you.

Isn’t that strange, how I am fond of a girl I have ever met? It feels strange to me. I could write to you forever, Adiago. You are like a place I can release the musings of my heart. You are a good friend to me. I wish to be a good friend to you.

I hope you write back quickly.

- _Pav_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes theo’s creepy obsession with pippa is convenient lmao, hope you enjoyed this chapter! i know it’s rushed also i wrote it all in one sitting at 5 am so if there are any weird mistakes tell me. i listened to reds by lav and lavender blood by fox academy while i was writing.


	8. pippa. entry eight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The letter isn’t neat and tidy as it usually is, it’s rough and scrawled, the envelope is a brilliant yellow. When Boris opens the letter, a blurry photograph of Theo Decker falls into his hand. Theo is a year or so younger. His eyes are bright, his smile is oddly wise, and there is a fire inside of him like a flickering candle flame, one that was now put out. On the back of the picture is a question. 
> 
> “Look familiar, Pav?”

Pav,

I feel obligated to tell you that my true name is Pippa, and the only boy I have ever kissed is one named Theo Decker. Is that your Potter?

I'm sorry everything is so fucked up for you right now, life is so strange in its delicate inner mechanisms. It's like a watch, the little delicate gears spinning together. I hope I am wrong and we are somehow not connected through your boy, but I feel in my heart that it is Theo.

Write quickly, Pav.

-Pippa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter should be posted soon. 
> 
> i listened to you’ll miss me when i’m not around by grimes while i wrote this.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed:)
> 
> kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!


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